Here at EarthQuaker, we have a lot of time for Rebecca Solnit. She’s a Bay Area neighbor of ours and simply one of the most interesting authors currently writing on the history, mythology, economics, politics and ecology of the American West — and how they all intersect.
But Solnit’s interests, and abilities, range more broadly. As evidence, check out the new issue of Orion. Her feature article on environmentalism and class in America is a essential reading for anyone wishing that environmental preservation could be more successfully pursued in America.
The modern American environmental movement has hobbled itself, Solnit argues, thanks to its puritanical admiration of ‘wilderness’ at the expense of the people who actually live there.
While she rehearses much that’s to regret about the past, Solnit also points to new trends (like environmentalist-rancher coalitions) that suggest how we might secure real, and lasting protection for America’s vast rural hinterlands.
EarthQuaker 